Doug Kaup: “I think it was the 27th of January when the first longer sheen was seen. There’s been very little if any oil that’s escaped the containment boom since then.”

He says the leak seems to have started when somebody started to dismantle the ship for scrap.

Doug Kaup: “They started to cut this vessel up in a fashion that made the vessel very unstable. Because of that the vessel broke. You know, it’s hard to know it’s clean when a lot of the tanks are underwater and stuff.”

Kaup says pumping water into the hold has greatly reduced the ‘V’ shape the hull was in — and the stress on the vessel.

Doug Kaup: “I have to make a determination if there’s a threat to the environment of pollution. If there is, then we continue the salvage efforts. And I don’t know exactly which way that’ll go. We might try and remove what’s on the vessel in the river, or we may try to take the vessel out of the river, might be the best way to do it.”

The Coast Guard estimates there are about nine similarly aging ships within the Columbia River sector. Kaup says an effort is being made to contact all the owners to gauge the health of the vessels.

Doug Kaup: These vessels that we have, derelict vessels in the river and large, old and very expensive to deal with.”

In the case of the Davey Crockett, Kaup says the owner appears to have walked away, leaving the Coast Guard to tap into about $2.5 million from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

The fund was established after the Exxon Valdez crashed and it’s funded by a small sum taken out of every gallon of gas purchased.

Oregon Senator Betsy Johnson was one of a team of lawmakers briefed on the Davey Crockett by Jeff Christiansen of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Betsy Johnson: “I have to tell you that I came away from the briefing, especially from Mr. Christiansen, with a sense of confidence in his ability to manage a spill of this magnitude.”

Still, Johnson says it is being characterized as a major spill and remains a high-level concern for both the Kitzhaber and Gregoire administrations.